As you know, throughout August, LegalZoom is “Celebrating Innovation.” Along with highlighting awesome creations and giving away some great prizes like trademark and patent filings and a Samsung Galaxy Tab, here at the blog we’re going to feature some of the strangest inventions that have passed through the United States Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO) in a series called:

Wacky Patent Wednesdays

And what better place to start than with summer’s own wonderful treat for which we all scream—ice cream!

a novelty amusement eating receptacle for supporting, rotating and sculpting a portion of ice cream or similarly malleable food while it is being consumed comprising: a hand-held housing, a cup rotatably supported by the hand-held housing and adapted to receive and contain a portion of ice cream or food product of similar consistency, and a drive mechanism in the hand-held housing for imparting rotation upon the cup and rotationally feeding its contents against a person’s outstretched tongue.

US5131832: Motorized Ice Cream Cone

What if you’re just at home and want a dish of ice cream—but find that straight out of the freezer, it’s just too hard to scoop? Why reach for that microwave door when you can try a heated ice cream apparatus instead?

The patent application describes this as “[a]n ice cream scoop including a ladle formed with an interior wall and exterior wall defining a heating chamber therebetween.” Presumably this will help soften up that hard ice cream directly out of the freezer and aid the scooping process.

Last but not least, I *really* wanted to include “Johnny Macaroni” in this list of wacky ice cream patents, but I haven’t been able to verify that it is indeed patented. The closest I’ve found is a patent for this “Method container for viscous food products” but it’s not held by the maker of the YouTube video. Still, here’s a glimpse of Johnny, with ice cream being squeezed out of his head, in a screenshot from the video:

Johnny Macaroni in action

Sadly Johnny Macaroni’s YouTube video won’t allow embedding, but this is from the description: “‘Johnny Macaroni’ is an innovative soft food dispenser, shaped as a doll, that enables children to combine playing and eating simultaneously. The doll was especially designed to be attractive and creative to children, as well as easy to operate.”

Consider it a wacky invention, if not patent, and be sure to come back next week for another edition of Wacky Patent Wednesdays!